Sweatpants, swim trunks, athletic shorts and other garments often incorporate an elastic waistband and drawstring into the waistband portion of the garment. The elastic waistband allows one size waist to fit many different waists, whereas the drawstring may be utilized for grasping and pulling the waist portion tightly around the wearer.
Various methods of manufacturing a garment having an elastic waistband and a drawstring are known in the art. One common method wherein the waistband is sewn to a hemmed channel requires the insertion of the drawstring into the hemmed channel by using a hooked tool to feed the drawstring into the channel. Such a technique, however, is tedious and requires a time-consuming separate step of handling the drawstring.
An alternative method of manufacturing which eliminates this separate step of handling the drawstring is to simultaneously form the hemmed channel over the waistband and over the drawstring such as described for example in Naccash U.S. Pat. No. 2,854,670. This method, however, requires care to be taken so that the drawstring is not inadvertently stitched when the waistband is sewn to the hemmed channel. Additionally, garments produced by either of these methods are susceptible to the drawstring being displaced from the garment or becoming lodged within the hemmed channel of the garment.
Another previously suggested alternative is to form the drawstring as an integral part of the elastic material of the waistband such as described for example in Graff U.S. Pat. No. 4,477,928. Therein the drawstring is incorporated with the threads of the elastic material during the weaving or knitting process in making the elastic band. This, however, potentially weakens the waistband and increases the tendency of the waistband to roll longitudinally along the length of the drawstring.
Thus the existing methods of forming a garment having an elastic waistband and drawstring have undesirable features which the instance invention is able to overcome.